Takata issues fresh recall for 1.4 million vehicles

Another day, another Takata airbag recall...

Takata has issued another recall as the company is calling back over 1.4 million vehicles for an airbag related fault. The latest recall comes days after a BMW driver died due to a faulty airbag in Australia. The latest recall includes cars from four other carmakers apart from BMW – Audi, Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi.

According to Takata, the latest recall includes 1.4 million vehicles, which were produced between 1995 and 2000. BMW has recalled over 116,000 3 Series models in the US, and have recommended that 8,000 of these shouldn’t be driven at all.

Takata has supplied tens of millions of defective airbag inflators to car manufacturers worldwide for over a decade. However, the previous recalls were issued owing to the use of volatile ammonium nitrate inflator in the airbag, which was notorious for absorbing moisture and was prone to exploding, throwing sharp metal debris inside the cabin. Now the current recall includes non-azide inflators, which is different, but can deteriorate over time and when exposed to moisture, it’s also prone to exploding. Takata says that over 4.5 million vehicles were fitted with these inflators worldwide, but since the vehicles are so old, only a portion of the faulty vehicles is still on roads.

Owing to recalls and multiple law suits across the world, Takata went bankrupt in 2017 and its entire operations were bought over by China’s Key Safety Systems. The two firms now work under a new name, Joyson Safety Systems.

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